Letter Cite This: ACS Sens. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
pubs.acs.org/acssensors
Rapid Diagnostic for Point-of-Care Malaria Screening Samantha E. McBirney,† Dongyu Chen,‡ Alexis Scholtz,§ Hossein Ameri,∥ and Andrea M. Armani*,⊥ †
Department of Biomedical Engineering, ‡Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering-Electrophysics, and ⊥Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States § Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, United States ∥ USC Roski Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90033, United States S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: Despite significant success in therapeutic development, malaria remains a widespread and deadly infectious disease in the developing world. Given the nearly 100% efficacy of current malaria therapeutics, the primary barrier to eradication is lack of early diagnosis of the infected population. However, there are multiple strains of malaria. Although significant efforts and resources have been invested in developing antibody-based diagnostic methods for Plasmodium falciparum, a rapid and easy to use screening method capable of detecting all malaria strains has not been realized. Yet, until the entire malaria-infected population receives treatment, the disease will continue to impact society. Here, we report the development of a portable, magneto-optic technology for early stage malaria diagnosis based on the detection of the malaria pigment, hemozoin. Using β-hematin, a hemozoin mimic, we demonstrate detection limits of
